


Who are you, really?

by Birthdaycakeandsleep (Catch_Me_When_I_Fall)



Category: Iron Man - Fandom, MCU, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Lots of OC's, OC, Self Deprecating Humor, but nicer, i think theres angst, not sure, peters like a brother
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-05-07 17:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19214368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catch_Me_When_I_Fall/pseuds/Birthdaycakeandsleep
Summary: Morgan Stark struggles to connect with the idea of who her father really is. The constant rumours spread about her in school and in the press don't help and most of all she feels as though she'll never live up to her father's legacy.And then it happens: a rumour that could destroy her whole life, or more importantly, the fragile way she sees her father. Torn between continuing her father's work as a hero, engineer, and business man, she begins to bury herself in work and school.Until the problem gets so big she can't ignore it anymore.





	1. Coffee grounds

“Did you bring my coffee?” Morgan said as Karla dropped a brown bag in front of her. She barely spared Karla a glance and continued tinkering with the wire in her hands. 

Karla hesitated. “You didn’t tell me you wanted any.”

“Yeah well, you’ve known me for how long?”

“If you really want coffee why don’t you go downstairs and get some?” Karla sounded like a three year old. They usually bickered back and forth between each other over petty stuff, once even over Karla's regular absences (she decided to skip whatever this was to go hang out with her boyfriend). Morgan entertained the idea of letting her go before remembering how much she hated getting up while she was in the heat of the moment.

Morgan looked up from her hands and squinted. “You’re not being serious, are you?”

Karla rolled her eyes. “You’re unbelievable.”

Morgan turned to her computer and muttered under her breath, “She’s not serious- Karla? Are you serious?”

Karla ignored her and stomped out of the room, muttering something about how she knew taking the internship was a bad choice. Morgan went back to her work, oblivious that she’d done anything wrong.

“You know, you should really be nicer to your assistants.” The knock at the door made her look up, inciting annoyance in the disruption of her work. When she saw who it was it she broke into a smile.

Morgan pushed her chair away from the table and moved towards Peter. “Technically she’s not my assistant.”

“Intern, right?” He glanced out the door. “What is she, fifteen?”

“She needed help passing Chemistry, I offered to tutor her in exchange for…”

“Slave labor?” Peter supplied.

Morgan laughed awkwardly. “More like the odd favor.”

Peter leaned over her shoulder and shuffled her blueprints around, frowning at the chicken scrawl that was her hand writing. Initially she was scared that the frowning was a sign of disapproval but after one particularly heated argument over the mathematics of the volume of a pipe she learnt it just mean he was trying hard to concentrate.

He grabbed one of the papers and brought it closer to his face. She watched eagerly to see if there was any shift in his expression, maybe the tilt of a smile or the tug of an even deeper frown.

“Is something wrong with it?” She asked anxiously. When he didn’t answer her stomach churned. There were so many things that could be wrong. The calculations were off, an anomaly had affected her results, or even worse— she was going off a theory that wasn’t even correct.

Peter let out a long-exasperated breath. “Wow this is… this is—”

“Terrible!” She blurted. “I know, it’s just schools gotten in the way so I haven’t had time to adjust the calculations, and you know how it is. All of my father’s notes are really hard to read and—”

“What? No! This is amazing!”

She looked at him, stunned. “Really?”

“Of course, look,” He sat down next to her and snatched the pencil from her hand, “If you just move the move the switch from the left to the right and use lead to avoid radiation poisoning you should be fine.”

Morgan slapped a palm to her forehead, “Of course, how could I forget? Gamma radiation is only reduced by lead, not copper.”

The table shook as she placed her head down on it in defeat. “I guess I just got caught up in making it light and portable. The rumors are true, God has abandoned us.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” He handed her a mug of fresh steaming coffee and instantly she perked up and snatched the cup.

A coffee break was much needed. How long had she been working? Morgan unlocked her phone to ten missed calls (most from her mother, one from her best friend Sal). She cursed and spilled some coffee on her greased covered apron and cursed again. When she remembered to look at the time it was already eight forty-five, three hours after she promised to meet her mom for dinner.

She grimaced at him and stood up. “Peter, I have to go, my mom’s calling me.”

“Yeah I know.” He dead panned. “Why do you think I’m here? Sit back down.”

She plopped back in her seat and tilted her head back giving out a sound that resembled a dying whale. This was the third time she’d stood her mom up in a week. There was no way she was going to get off without being grounded.

Peter sipped his coffee and looked at her over his mug. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Morgan crossed her arms and looked at her blueprints. “I’m okay.”

“Right. How’s school?”

“I don’t know, how’s life? How’s global warming? How’s Obama?” She sighed. “Does it matter?”

He pointedly looked at her. She shrugged. “School’s like it’s always been: full of hormonal teenagers with way too much stress and pent up anger then the daily recommended dosage.”

He studied her for a moment. “Is anyone bothering you again?”

“I think, the more important question is, are they going to ever stop bothering me?”

He set down his mug and stared at her. “Do you want the truth?”

“Yes.”

Peter leaned back and plopped his muddy shoes all over the desk and said, “No.”

Morgan shoved her work away from his shoes and shot him a dirty look. “Thanks for the encouragement Gandhi.”

“I’m serious, Morgan. Bullies are going to be everywhere, even when you get older.”

“Ah, you see but they have a name.” He stared blankly at her. “They’re called ‘the press’. That and weird-creepy-stalkery fans.”

He chuckled and stood up. “Come on, let’s walk you home.”

They made their way downtown after letting Karla know she could go home.

The truth was, it wasn’t school that was eating her up, it wasn’t even the press. It was what always plagued her. Her father.

It was the you’re-so-much-like-your-father and your-father-would-be-proud-of-you’s, and all the other crappy things people said to make themselves feel better about an awkward situation. The reality was that Morgan resented her father, though she would never admit it.

Why did he leave her? Why couldn’t he have cared enough to have stayed for her mother? But she wasn’t there during the war. She never remembered life before Thanos and for this Peter forgave her, even if she didn’t know it.

“You’ll tell me if anything’s wrong, yeah?” Peter said as Morgan walked up the stairs of her front porch, hauling her bag up her shoulder. 

“Of course, Uncle Peter.” She said as he turned away.

Pepper grounded her. For a week.

For most kids grounding meant no leaving the house, for Morgan it meant not entering her lab. She didn’t even realize how entitled it sounded until Sal pointed it out.

“Is whining about not being able to enter your-hand-me-down laboratory entitled?” Sal jabbed a cold French fry her way. “Yes, the answer is yes.”

“It’s really not.”

“All that is missing is you telling me how I’m not invited to go sailing on your Yacht anymore.”

Morgan groaned and took another bite of her sandwich. “First of all, you don’t sail on a Yacht. Second of all, I don’t even have a Yacht. My mom sold both of them.”

“You’re lucky your nerdiness makes up for any stupid shit that comes out of your mouth.” Killian set down his tray next to them and sat next to Sal. They both glanced at each other and back at Morgan.

Killian pushed his hands down across the table and waited for Morgan to grab them. He elbowed Sal to do the same. It must have looked weird to everyone else in the cafeteria but  
Killian didn’t care, whenever he demanded attention he always held out his hands.

“We need to talk.” Killian said. He and Sal shared a nervous look before looking at Morgan. Immediately Morgan sat up straighter and leaned in, her heart pounding in her rib cage.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve gotten worse.” Morgan whispered hurriedly, giving Sal a distraught look.

“No, it’s not that.” Sal said. Morgan calmed down and breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s about your dad.” Killian blurted. Morgan recoiled and took her hands back, looking between them, confused.

“Look,” Sal began, leaning back and flattening her hands on the table the way she always did when she had something serious to say. “There’s been some rumors going around about you and your family.”

“Oh, again?” Morgan looked relieved. She’d dealt with rumors since the day she’d been born. People speculated about her in the newspapers when she was first born, she was on the cover of New York Times by the time she’d turned one. The rumors were never about her specifically but usually targeted her dad. Usually they were ludicrous, the usual ‘Tony stark, hero or fraud?’ She had grown used to it by now.

“That’s okay,” She went back to picking at her sandwich. “Why did you guys scare me like that?”

Killian hissed as if he was getting ready to disappoint her. He probably was. Most of the stuff he did was questionable, but she loved him regardless. “Well, it’s a lot worse than the stuff that’s usually spread about you.”

“Hit me, I’m ready for it.” She meant to say it as a joke but instead was confronted by Sal throwing a newspaper onto the table, none too gently. Morgan didn’t even have to turn the paper the right way to read the headline.

Her stomach sunk. Right there, on the top of the New York Times:

New evidence suggests that Stark is still alive.

That wasn't even the worst bit. The wort bit was that there was a picture of him at a newspaper stand, hoodie up and all.

The news papers on the stand were dated the sixteenth of April 2033. They were dated for yesterday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so this is my weird attempt at committing to something. This is more of a committed writing exercise for me rather than a fully fledged fit but here we are. May or may not continue, depending on how I feel? Tell me if you liked it, kudos are appreciated!
> 
> Edit: I edited the ending because I needed a better rumour and I thought of a better plot. By the way, none of my work is Beta'd or even proofread (because my eyes suck and I don't have my glasses so it hurts too much after a while). If you would like to be a beta of mine feel free to message me and ask!


	2. All I've ever known

Morgan doesn’t even know how to react. Which is probably why she’s sitting on Sal’s living room couch covered in blankets and holding a steaming cup of hot chocolate. They didn’t even make it until the end of lunch. Instead, after numerous protests from Killian, they decided to call it a day and head over to Sal’s.

When you’re Tony Stark’s daughter rumors tend to follow you around. People care about everything you do, who you’re dating, who you’re talking to, who you’re fraternizing with. Some of the accusations she’d read had made her stomach turn and as a rule no one was allowed to have newspapers in the house anymore. 

Morgan blamed a particular indiscreet article about her parent’s sex life for that.

“C’mon Morg, is there anything we can do for you?” Sal said over the voice of Marty McFly (Back to the future was Killian’s favorite movie, not Morgan’s, but she didn’t particularly care right now).

Morgan shook her head and offered a limp smile that was in every aspect not-reassuring. “Articles like this come and go. It’s another troll trying to spark controversy again.”

“Yeah but we’ve never had such blatant proof.” Killian said. 

Sal shot him an angry look. “Haven’t you ever heard of Photoshop?” 

“Fox News said it wasn’t faked.” Killian shrugged.

“Since when do we trust Fox News?” Sal drawled. 

“True.”

“Guys,” At Morgan’s voice both Sal and Killian perked up. “Can we just watch the movie?”

They shut up. Back to the future finished with a bang and Sal plugged in the next cassette into her cassette player. Morgan got it for her as a birthday gift a couple of years ago. She had offered to make one but since Sal was all for the ‘real’ antiques it seemed more fitting to buy one at an antique store.

Marty McFyl’s kissing scene with his mother was cut short by Morgan’s phone. She untucked it from her waistband and looked at the I.D: Donut Guy.

The name actually made Peter laugh when he first saw it. When asked why his contact name was Donut Guy Morgan merely shrugged and muttered something about him always bringing her donuts when he went to visit.

Sal and Killian were too engrossed in the movie to notice when she slinked off to Sal’s front porch. It was the kind of porch you always dreamed of as a kid, one with a swinging couch where you could go sit on during a rainy day while drinking coffee.

After her father’s death Pepper packed out the house and they moved back to New York. Back to the chaos of it all. Of course, Morgan didn’t know what life had been like when the avengers were compiled of Iron man, Thor, The Hulk, and Captain America. She didn’t know the constant alien attacks and blowing up of buildings.

All she knew was that she was responsible for picking up the remnants of her father’s legacy.

So off they went, Pepper and her, to a nice big apartment in Manhattan to be near what her father had left. 

Stark had been no fool. The company went to Pepper, of course. When Morgan was old enough she would inherit it and in Stark’s books old enough meant twenty-five. To Morgan it looked like he wanted to delay as long as possible the inevitable fuck ups Morgan would bring to the company. If you had asked Peter, on the other hand, after getting him tipsy on his favorite kind of wine, he would have said that Tony didn’t want Morgan to end up like he did: buried in his work with a huge responsibility to shoulder.

Morgan picked up the phone to Peter yelling. 

“-of course, I don’t care if you-!” Morgan heard the rumble of an engine over the receiver. “Can we please do this another time? I’m calling my niece.”

She coughed into the phone. “Hello?”

“Hold up a minute, Morg. This thug won’t get off my back.” A bang made her startle. “No, Chrisopher I wasn’t calling you a thu- Morgan, why weren’t you in school today?”

“Are you sure I can’t call you back later? You sound kinda busy.” She swatted some mosquitoes from her face and cursed them.

“I know, kid. I’m just at work.”

“Hey, you called me.” She squinted suspiciously at the moon. “And that doesn’t sound like work. Where even are you?”

“Like I said, work.” As the sound of panting and running came from the phone, Morgan decidedly plopped down on the swing and traced the braided wood with her fingers.

Unlike her dad and mom Peter was always there. It didn’t matter if he had work, it didn’t matter that he had a date (though Morgan always teased him when he went on those), he’d always showed up when he needed her.

Pepper was trying to juggle family life and the company. For all her preaching to Tony when they were first trying to start a family she’d seemed to forgotten what she said to him all those years.

“Okay, now I’m free. I’ve only got five minutes so we’ll have to make this quick.” Peter sighed into the phone. “Why weren’t you at school?”

That was a great question. Why wasn’t she at school? She could play it off as a panic attack, it wouldn’t be anything new. She could pretend she was above school but Peter would see right through it. It wasn’t like it was the first time she decided to play hooky (the first was in eighth grade when her school had tried to have her make a speech one of her father’s projects. She had noped out of that one pretty quickly.)

Morgan shrugged before remembering he couldn’t see her. “It was just an article.”

The phone fell silent.

“You know whatever they said isn’t true, right?”

“You don’t even know what they said!” She spluttered.

“You’ve got to stop reading all of those magazines. It’s worked wonders for me.”

Morgan snorted. “You? Why would someone write an article about you?”

“Right, of course, why would anyone-?” Peter cleared his throat. “So you decided to skip school?”

“It was only biology.”

“Well biology is actually quite fascinating if you just take the time to-.”

“I’m tired, Pete. Why did you really call?” 

Peter hesitated behind the phone. “Because I’m worried about you.”

Morgan burrowed her brow. “Mom’s already worried about me, I don’t need you to worry too.”

“Look, Morgan. Obviously, I don’t know what it’s like to be in your position—.”

“No, you really don’t.” And with that Morgan ended the call. She didn’t even know why she did it. Peter was the most stable thing in her life. He was the one who was there when she learnt how to ride a bike, he was there the first time she had her heart broken. 

Maybe she was bitter because he took up the spot her dad should have.

Morgan looked up at the night sky, guilt eating away at her insides like a swarm of ants to a piece of fruit. Anxiety slithered up her throat but she choked it down and kept it at bay.

It was stupid. It was all so fucking stupid. All of Peter’s reassurance that indeed, her dad did love her, fell to deaf ears. It didn’t matter what he said. It didn’t matter how much ice cream he brought her on the nights that felt unbearable or how much he seemed to care. Tony Stark had left a hole in her life, only one that he could fill.

And Morgan? She’d give anything to have one last word with her dad. Granted she’d probably yell at him for leaving her alone and then break down crying but that wouldn’t stop her from trying to grasp at straws.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a neatly folded up article, the one from earlier, and stared at the picture. She’d seen pictures of her dad before but never like this. In this one he looked disheveled and wild eyed. Almost as if he was hiding from something…

She stuffed the picture back into her pocket and went back inside only to find Sal and Killian in the same spot they’d originally been. She smiled serenely.

Sal looked up at her and skootched over, patting the seat next to her. Morgan shook her head. “Mom wants me back home.”

“Oh no, the jefa.” Killian looked at her wide eyed. “Don’t tell me she’s angry.”

“No more than Peter is.” Morgan began to look for her bag. 

Sal slid off her covers. “I’m sure she’ll understand.”

Killian whistled and Sal shot him another dirty look. Between these two it was dirty look upon dirty look. They’d murder each other if it weren’t for Morgan.

“Do you want my mom to drive you?”

Sal lived in the suburbs, in a proper house not an apartment, and it was the farthest place Morgan was allowed to go unsupervised. “I’ll just take an Uber, don’t worry about it.”

And with that Morgan swung her backpack on her shoulder and waved her friends goodbye, faking a call to an uber and decidedly walking home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Ho, surprise surprise, I decided to continue this because now I have a plot!
> 
> Will it be long? Who knows. Will it be good? Who knows. Certainly not me.
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> P.S I don't live in new york so I don't know what it's like, I'm just pretending it's just like the city I live in and suburbs are about a forty minute drive from the city (and by city I mean non suburb).


End file.
